The Righteous Robber (Reporter: David Sela)
Then he said quietly to my father:
"I was indeed a criminal, but not a murderer"
My father, Shmuel Sela z"l, owned a jewelry store on Nordau Street in Haifa. All my childhood I lived in fear, after my father used to report robberies with his acquaintances. To the reports he would always add a sigh with a question: "And what will we have to eat if one day our store is also robbed?"
One winter evening, just before closing, my father went outside the store for a thing. When he returned, two masked robbers attacked him at the entrance, pushed him inside and closed the door behind them. One of them was holding an Uzi submachine gun, while the other emptied whole trays of gold and diamond jewelry into a large jute bag.
At a certain moment, my father took advantage of the robber's inattention with the Uzi, attacked him and waged a persistent and violent struggle against him. The robber with the trays was startled by what was happening and began to run away, followed by his friend - who had meanwhile escaped from my father's grasp.
A neighbor who was watching the scene from the house across the street immediately called the police, and within seconds a patrol car that happened to patrol nearby. The fleeing robbers, hearing the sirens, ran amok along the street, and as they ran the bag of jewelry they were holding was torn.
By the time they reached the getaway car, in which a driver with an engine was waiting for them, the bag was completely diluted. In contrast, the sidewalk they passed along their flight route was lined with diamond rings, gold bracelets, pearl giants and pins set with precious stones.
Shmuel Sela and his wife parked in the jewelry store where the robbery took place. "I was with the Uzi, the robber you attacked", photo: from the family album
The police car immediately began chasing the robbers' Lark car, which galloped with a shriek of wheels into the nearby street - against the direction of traffic. At one point, one of the officers pulled his upper body out of the window of the patrol car and fired three shots at the fleeing vehicle. One of the bullets went through the rear window and hit the driver, causing Lark to immediately swerve onto the pavement and crash into a tree trunk.
While the police arrested the robbers and confiscated the Uzi, which was loaded with a full magazine, the neighbors went down to the street, collected the jewelry from the sidewalk, and immediately returned it to my stunned father's store. Until late at night, many gathered around the store and talked about the dramatic event that struck the sleepy neighborhood.
"The guy's soul is tormented"
Ten years passed since the robbery, when one day between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi dressed in Capote, with a thick beard and radiant eyes, entered my father's store. My father, who had feared another robbery all his life, suspected he was an impostor and asked the man cautiously how he could help him.
"It's not a matter of business, it's about charity," the rabbi explained calmly.
"I've already donated at home," my father said.
"No, no," the rabbi said calmly, "this is mental charity."
When the last customer left the store, my father and the rabbi sat down for a chat.
"Do you remember the robbery you had ten years ago?" the rabbi asked.
"Of course," my father sweated uncomfortably.
The rabbi introduced himself: "I am the rabbi of a yeshiva of repentants in northern Israel. We have a new Torah scholar, a repentant, who came to us after sitting in another yeshiva for nine years. He is a prodigy, a wonderful perseverer, content with little and an extreme ascetic."
"How does all this concern me?" my father wondered.
"The guy I'm talking to you about," the rabbi paused, "is the man who robbed your store ten years ago. And the 'yeshiva' from which he came to us was Ramle Prison."
My father gripped the back of his chair in astonishment. "So what are you asking of me?" he finally asked the rabbi.
"The young man's soul has been torturing him for years," the rabbi replied. "And especially during the Ten Days of Repentance, as Yom Kippur approaches. He wants to reach a full and pure answer. Every day he imagines himself being burned in the agony of hell, because of the great injustice he has done to you. You will do him great kindness if you open your heart to him and forgive him for his crimes."
"Tell him I've forgiven," my father said immediately, getting up. "Tell him also that I wished him a lot of health."
"No," cried the rabbi. "Sorry deserves to be seen, not just said. Please, if only you can have the courage to meet the guy so that he can ask for forgiveness and forgiveness in front of you."
My father thought for a moment, considered and pondered, and finally agreed.
"Beautiful, we will come tomorrow morning," the rabbi smiled and explained: "Tomorrow is the eve of Yom Kippur, a good time for forgiveness and atonement."
The next morning at nine o'clock in the morning, the rabbi returned to the store with a young man dressed in black, his face adorned with long cheeks wigs and a tangled beard. The guy looked apprehensively and awkwardly at the floor, as if he had lost something years ago and now it was time to find it. And since my father was busy with a client at the time, the young man sat down with the rabbi in the corner, pulled out a tattered prayer book and immersed himself in a silent murmur.
"If you hadn't attacked me in a robbery, even though I had a gun, my friends and I wouldn't have gotten confused and run away. We were used to robbing, but in your store everything went wrong, and because of you we were actually caught. I owe you my life, and I ask your forgiveness. Please forgive me."
When he left his business in the meantime, my father went over and sat down with the two of them. The rabbi began his speech dramatically: "We have with us a young man who a generation ago lived a life of disgrace, listened to the advice of the wicked, sat in a seat for Zim and did evil in the eyes of God. But G-d, merciful and merciful, pulled his stray soul from the depths of Hades, and brought him back, thank G-d, to a world of mitzvot, mercy and good deeds."
The guy, in response, kept muttering with his eyes closed. My father sat across from both of them, embarrassed.
After a long silence, with the rabbi urging action with his elbow, the young man finally opened his mouth.
"I ask for forgiveness," he said in a low voice.
"Is that all?" my father asked puzzled.
And here the guy started talking. Spoke - and didn't stop. He fluently tells the story of growing up in one of Haifa's downtown slums, with multiple siblings, a drunken father and a mother who was often absent from home. He told how he was dragged into the world of crime, first with small offenses and then with increasingly difficult acts. He described how, while serving his sentence in Ramle Prison, he attended religious classes, and what joy conversion filled his soul.
And the more he went on describing, the more his voice grew, his back straightened and a new light appeared through his eyes. He spoke incessantly, as if he had been in fasting for ten years and was now exempt from his prohibition.
When he finished, there was silence in the store space, and only the hum of the neon light could be heard.
"Tell me," my father broke the silence in a whisper. "Which of the three robbers were you?"
The young man replied shyly: "I was with the Uzi, the robber you attacked."
This time it was my father's turn to get excited. For ten years, the difficult scene did not leave his mind, when he faced the masked man who pointed his weapon at him. Did not forget the picture not even for one day.
"There's something that's been sticking in my head all these years," my father said, turning to the guy. "When I pounced on you and started hitting you, the Uzi in your hands was charged. Why didn't you shoot me?"
The young man hung his eyes on my father and replied softly: "I was indeed a criminal, but not a murderer."
My father got up in awe from his chair and went to one of the display tables in the store. He searched for something, until he finally found it: a gold medallion bearing the letters "Alive." He threaded it on a thin gold chain, put everything in a small box and walked back over to the guy.
"Take it!" he said excitedly. "Thank you for not shooting me. Thanks to you, I'm still alive."
But the guy refused to take the box, explaining: "No! I am the one who lives because of you. If you hadn't pounced on me in that robbery, my friends and I wouldn't have gotten confused and run away. We were already used to robbing, but in your store everything went wrong, and because of you we were caught. At first I thought it was just misfortune, but when I came to religion I realized that God's hand was in it. He directed me to you and sent you to me. From you I came to prison, and from prison to repentance. In any other scenario, I would have died long ago—from drugs or other sick pastures. I owe you my life, and I ask your forgiveness. Please, forgive me."
"I forgive," my father said in a trembling voice.
At this point, the rabbi straightened up in his chair, pounded the table, and said: "Well, let it be at a happy hour! May we merit mitzvot, acts of kindness and charity, and come to mark the Redeemer and peace over all of Israel." He motioned with his eyes to choose, and they both turned and left the store.
As they left, my father looked in their direction and noticed that the sitting guy, who had only half an hour earlier entered slumped and hesitant, was now walking with his back straight and head held high, as if a great burden had been lifted off his shoulders.
Unknown persons at the funeral
20 years after that fateful day of reconciliation, my father passed away. It happened one evening, all at a glance.
During his funeral, when I looked up and surveyed the large crowd that had gathered there, I couldn't help but notice that on a small hill, on the edge of the crowd, stood an unknown ultra-Orthodox man dressed in black, flanked by six children of different heights, looking up at the large public. They stood still, listening to eulogies and following the bedbearers with their gaze.
When the funeral was over, I wanted to go over to them, quietly find out who they were and shake their hand. But by the time I looked up at the hill again, they were gone. As if they had never been there.
Thunderous Speech (Reporter: Jackie Levy)
The words "like everyone else" were my miserable slip of the mouth. And she injured
A few years ago I was invited to host the municipal Memorial Day ceremony of my hometown, Bat Yam. Among other things, I had to ceremonially and respectfully read the list of the fallen. Over the years, I've gained enough experience in front of a microphone, on the radio and on stage to perform these kinds of tasks, but there were a few names that stopped at my throat. At that moment, I hoped in my heart that no one was noticing. To be honest, I had to put professionalism aside and let the tears do their thing.
These names belonged to martyrs who until that moment I knew as "Daddy's." Never before had I known what they were really called. But I recognized by the last name and by that number, 73. I think that every time a member of our class or equivalent class lost a father or brother, most of us got caught up in a whirlwind of emotions where, along with the distress, there was also a sense of relief that it wasn't us. Not this time. This time it's him.
Teenagers in Ramat Gan fill sandbags during the Yom Kippur War. "Most of us were raw then", Photo: Hananya Herman/GPO
The '70s were a sweet time in many ways, but when it came to expressing emotion, most of us were raw. I don't think there are many things as ridiculous as apologizing for something 50 years too late. Still, it still bothers me to think that instead of wrapping up the children who were orphaned in that war, we shied away from them. As if there is something contagious about bereavement. Something about their bitter fate that you should simply stay away from.
היינו ילדים מפוחדים. לא ידענו איך לגשת ולא מצאנו משהו לומר, ולכן לא ניגשנו וגם לא אמרנו כלום. ואני חושב שזה גם קצת באשמת התקופה ההיא, שלא לימדה לדבר, ובאשמת המורים, שלא הדריכו אותנו. אבל לא פחות מכך, מה לעשות, גם באשמתנו שלנו.
• • •
שנים אחרי הילדות, כשהייתי נח"לאי אחרי קורס מ"כים, קיבלנו הודעה שצה"ל זקוק לחיילים משופשפים להקמת יחידה חדשה. זמן קצר אחרי שהגענו לבסיס הלא מוכר קראו לנו להרצאה שתתקיים בחדר האוכל. שני חיילים עמדו שם, ליד לוח עמוס בשקפים, והתחילו להמטיר מידע.
כל התנאים נראו כמו הכנה לתרדמה מפוארת, אבל אז הם אמרו: "חבר'ה, התפקיד שלנו כאן הוא לדאוג לכך שמלחמת יום כיפור לא תוכל לקרות בשנית". ופתאום כולם הזדקפו, חידדו חושים ואפילו שאלו שאלות קשות. הסתכלתי סביב והבנתי שכל בני גילי גוררים פחות או יותר אותה חוויית ילדות מכוננת.
"באולם ישבו שני אנשים שאבא שלהם לא חזר מהחזית. לא אחרי חצי שנה ולא בכלל. קשה לי לחשוב על משהו שאני מתחרט שאמרתי יותר מצמד המילים הללו. אני מתנצל מאז שוב ושוב. בטח בערב יום כיפור"
את מלחמת יום כיפור אני זוכר מבעד לעיניו של ילד בכיתה ה' בבית הספר "תחכמוני" בבת ים. בילינו כמה לילות במקלט המאובק שמתחת לבלוק, אבל דווקא החוויה הזאת לא נצרבה כל כך בנפשנו. חוץ מהעובדה שהיה מוזר לראות פתאום את כל השכנים עם הפיג'מות המצחיקות שלהם.
מה זוכרים בכל זאת? את המחסור. מחסור בשמן, בקמח, באורז, בסוכר ובגברים צעירים. מותר לקנות רק בקבוק אחד וקילו אחד, ומנהל החנות שלא הפסיק לחשוד בכולם שמנסים לעבוד עליו. ובצדק: "כל פעם את שולחת ילד אחר להביא עוד קמח! אבל הם די דומים, עם כל הכבוד!" ואת העובדה שבמשך חצי שנה התבקשתי, בן ה־10 שהייתי, להיות הגבר של הבית. לעשות קידוש ולהוריד את הפח.
ואת הפעם הראשונה שבה הגיע לבית הכנסת אחד החיילים שחזר לחופשה. אני זוכר שגם הפעם עצרו את התפילה לזמן ממושך. זה היה זק, שנפטר לאחרונה, כך שמעתי. הוא הגיע לקבלת השבת כשהוא עדיין במדים, טרם הספיק להתקלח, וכל הזקנים עמדו בתור לחבק אותו, למשש אותו ולוודא שהוא אכן אמיתי ושהוא כאן.
היו הרבה רגעים חזקים בשנה ההיא. ואנחנו, הילדים שעמדנו בצד והתבוננו, לא נשכח גם את הרגע הזה.
• • •
יש רגע במופע שלי על שנות ה־70 שבו אני מספר על הרגעים האלה. הגיוס בבית הכנסת, חזרתו של אבא וכל מיני דברים קטנים ובלתי נשכחים שהתרחשו בין לבין. באחת מההופעות הראשונות כשלתי בלשוני. רציתי לספר על כך שהחיילים חזרו הביתה מסואץ אחרי חצי שנה. היום זה באמת קצת בלתי נתפס. חצי שנה בלי מכתב ובלי שיחת טלפון. אבל באותו ערב אמרתי משהו כמו "כמו כולם, אבא חזר אחרי חצי שנה".
באולם ישבו שני אנשים שאבא שלהם לא חזר. לא אחרי חצי שנה, ולא בכלל. המילים "כמו כולם" היו פליטת פה אומללה שפצעה אותם. קשה לי לחשוב על משהו שאני מתחרט שאמרתי יותר מאשר צמד המילים הללו. התנצלתי אז. ואני מתנצל מאז שוב ושוב. בטח בערב יום כיפור.
הרגשה טינופת (כתבה: איה כורם)
אחרי יומיים הגיע ממנו מייל: "איך יכולת לעשות לי את זה?"
הדבר הכי גרוע שעשיתי למישהו היה להשאיר אותו על החוף בהודו וללכת. אני אפילו לא יכולה להגיד שהייתי צעירה וטיפשה, כי כבר הייתי במחצית השנייה של שנות ה־20 שלי, וידעתי טוב מאוד שלא עושים דבר כזה למישהו.
מה שלא ידעתי זה איך להגיד למישהו שאני לא רוצה שהוא יבוא איתי לגוקרנה בעודנו על המטוס למומביי, או במלון במומביי, או בנסיעה לגוקרנה, בעצירה ללילה בבקתה בדרך, או בכל רגע נתון לפני העלייה לסירה שלקחה אותנו לחוף מבודד בלי חשמל או מים זורמים.
התחלנו לצאת חודשיים קודם לכן. הוא היה שונה מאוד מכל הבנים שיצאתי איתם עד לאותה נקודה: כאלה שיש להם גזייה באוטו. הבחור הזה היה אמן ורגיש מאוד, וכנראה קצת מפונק, ואני ממש מקווה שהוא לא קורא את זה עכשיו.
It was a moment's decision, to get on a plane to India, as if on vacation, but in fact simply to escape everything I didn't like: the ex who still came knocking on my door from time to time, this strange career that I didn't choose but was too arrogant to leave, my group of friends that was falling apart, the money, the no money, the people who looked at me, who kept looking at me.
He was in love with me, and I enjoyed the attention. One evening he cautiously asked what I thought he would join. I don't really remember what I said or how I reacted, but I think we had some very vague agreement that if it's fun we'll continue together, and if not, we'll split up. Very dumb thing to sum up when I've been to India twice already and it never has.
"Hear? I'm here on the beach and I have to cut," Photo: GettyImages
There are those among you who will say, "Well, you can think." But India is not another country, it is a different universe. It is repulsive and frightening, and at the same time beautiful and full of charm. You can love it and you can hate it – and usually it's both.
On my first ever day in India, I was dragged after my then-boyfriend in Delhi's Main Bazaar, probably one of the most extreme places on earth to look for a place to lay my head for one night. We found some disgusting hostel, and the first night in India I spent looking at the stained wall, tossing and turning in the hard bed and asking myself Wat De Pak.
But after night morning came, and we left the filthy city and boarded the train for a day's journey. I chose the top bed and covered myself with the clean sheet. The chai vendor stepped into the car and poured us sweet and delicious chai into triple glasses.
"When I told him I was going, he didn't understand. Thought I was going to come back. I didn't look in the eyes. I knew good people weren't supposed to do things like that. In the morning, an acquaintance asked me, 'Where do you want to go?' and I replied: 'From here.'"
• • •
He was so miserable. When we got to the beach, we went down to the soft sand with our heavy bags. It was hot, it was hard for him. I took his bag, not because I wanted to help, but so I wouldn't hear him complain anymore. We walked in silence, settled into silence and were silent all afternoon. In the evening, I went to the pay phone and called an acquaintance who was living in Goa at the time:
"Hear? I'm here on the beach and I have to cut."
"Come get you?"
"Yes."
Gokarna, India. 'He cautiously asked what I thought he would join', Photo: GettyImages
When I told him I was going, he didn't understand. Thought I was going to come back. I didn't look in the eyes. I knew good people weren't supposed to do things like that.
In the morning, the acquaintance came, handed me a helmet and tied my bag to the motorcycle. "Where do you want to go?"
"Map".
We drove up to Goa on semi-paved roads, the sea on one side, fields on the other. I thought my vacation was finally starting. Two days later, he emailed me asking how I could have done such a thing. I was old enough to understand that it was my responsibility. I was young enough to think I could forget about it.
We haven't exchanged a word since.
Fatal imitation (Reporter: Kobi Arieli)
I didn't doubt the veracity of the act, but I thought: Maybe it's not me?
Usually, when a social network brings in a past DS, it's a happy thing. It's good to discover an old friend, it's nice to hear a story from the past, and in general the familiar nostalgia engine, which is obviously based on the happiness that attacks people when they remember that they were once young, begins to pulsate.
In the past, these moments were reserved for a random meeting or an energetic friend who initiates a gathering of friends. Today these are actions that are at any moment on Facebook, Instagram and their friends.
One day, not long ago, the TikTok app started signaling me that someone had mentioned me. My TikTok is in its infancy, and it's not active at all, but of course I left everything and ran to see what it was all about. Well, the first signal was pretty minor. It was a friend from the yeshiva I remembered well, who told the camera that he studied at the yeshiva where I studied and even mentioned some friends who studied with him.
Since I'm a well-known guy, he mentioned me too (everyone else was rabbis and educators, I was the only clown). I was actually flattered, but then came the next tweet that told a story.
Kobi Arieli during the yeshiva (the subjects have no connection to the story), photo: from the private album
And the story was that once, during our yeshiva studies, I seriously hurt him. He said he was on an acute diet at the time and had lost a lot of weight, so his pants hung on him in a slightly ridiculous or sloppy way. He also said that one day, when he was making his way through a yeshiva, I followed him with a friend and imitated his gait, sure he couldn't see. What went unnoticed was a large windshield in front of us, through which I and every movement of my movements were reflected. He just saw everything and didn't respond.
It's been 32 years since then, and he remembers every detail, especially the injury. So much so that he allows himself to tell the world about it on TikTok.
The effect of this video on me was uncontrollable. I just cringed in terrible pain, and at first all I wanted was to either bury myself or run to him and hug him. But then I calmed down a bit and all that was left was great pain. Very big. I didn't remember the exact event, but it was too accurate a description to be incorrect. And this, how to say gently, is not entirely unsuitable for me.
Quite easily I could imagine myself there, walking lightly after someone who was walking a little funny and imitating him, in a small way, to make the person walking beside me laugh. But when, 32 years later, it turned out that the object of imitation had simply seen me, it was terrible. A terrible shame washed over me with an intensity I didn't know. I often feel remorse for things I do and things I say. This case really was of unknown intensity.
Of course, immediately, out of pain, I contacted him and apologized from the bottom of my heart, and also stated that I must say that I do not remember the incident, and although I do not doubt, God forbid, the truth of the act, I still give some chance that it may have been someone else and not me, and in any case I apologize and apologize and apologize. Forgiveness and forgiveness and atonement.
And he replied to me with such joy and such forgiveness with all my heart, that they made me miss him and love him really. Dance to you, dance to you, dance to you, he wrote and added more warm words. And I really felt what the Mishnah meant when it stated, "Offenses between a person and his friend do not have Yom Kippur from atonement until he pleases his friend." This is what appeasement really looks like.
"The effect of the accusatory video on me was uncontrollable. I just cringed in terrible pain, and at first all I wanted was to either bury myself or run to him and hug him. But then I calmed down a bit and all that was left was great pain. Very big"
But then he proceeded to describe the incident to me and provided more details about what had happened. For example, the name of the person who was there next to me, and also took the trouble to tell about the place where it all happened: It was, he said, right on the side of the dining room, on the way to the beit midrash.
And I continued to rejoice that he had forgiven me and that he was satisfied, and in the wake of the new data, my mind and my conscience were also relaxed. I didn't say a word to him, of course, but how much can I keep it in my stomach? So here, now is the eve of Yom Kippur, and if he reads these lines, I must tell him clearly:
Bhayat, my son, leave. It wasn't me. If you were to describe a story that happened at boarding school, it would be believable. But I never walked to the beit midrash. You will be forced to keep looking for the real offender. But thank you for giving me the feeling of forgiveness, and finishing a good autograph for you.
And sorry to everyone I really hurt.
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us